EDT+676+Using+Ipods+in+the+Classroom

EDT 676 Ipod

=**Assignment 1 - 5 sites**=

1. Pod Touch Project - John Johnston

This is a blog that tells about a classroom that is piloting using iPods in a primary classroom. What I love about this site is that I can see the different projects that the students are creating and I can also see the different apps that the students are using. I am very interested in following this blog to see all of the ways that the iPod Touch will be used!

2. iPod Touch Classroom Wiki

This is a wiki for teachers who are using iPod Touches in their classroom. Anyone can contribute and there are a lot of resources here!

3. iPod Apps Chart by grade level

This is an incredible find! This is a spreadsheet of iPod apps organized by grade level and by subject. I found this very useful!

4. Prezi Presentation by Kern Kelly I I found this Prezi Presentation about using iPod Touches in the classroom. It has videos in it that demonstrate what to do. It was really fun to watch and interesting.

5. StoryKit for iPod Touch

This is a blog post discussing using an app called StoryKit for the iPod Touch. The blog is written by Ben Rimes. I added this app to my iPod and it is very easy to use and I think my students would like it.

=Assignment 2 - Podcasts=

For the classroom I found this podcast.

Kid Friday

For myself I found this technology podcast. Two hosts talk about the latest technology and give tips and tricks. The episode I watched covered using Google Earth to view images from the Hubble Space Telescope. This was totally cool.

Tekzilla

=Assignment 3 - Ten Apps=

5 personal apps

1. Facebook app for social networking. Several of us in this cohort are friends on Facebook. 2. Textfree Lite is an app for sending a text. I used this and it worked great! 3. Fox News to get the latest news. I enjoy getting the latest news. 4. Zinio is an app to read articles from top magazines. I need to check this out. 5. Pandora Radio lets you listen to your favorite music on the radio. I use this on my laptop at school and I love it.

5 educational apps

1. Google Earth is a great app for teaching geography and math skills. We currently can't get Google Earth in our classrooms. 2. 210 Human Body Facts is an app that gives interesting facts about body systems. You shake the iPod to make it select a new fact. My kids liked this a lot. 3. My Homework is an app for students who want to keep track of their assignments and when they are due. 4. Free Flashcards Study Helper allows students to make their own flashcards and use them to study from. This is easy to use! 5. Bump is an app that allows users to share pictures, contacts, and other information just by bumping their iPods together! It sounds unbelievable, but it is true. Here is a link that describes the Bump app: @http://bu.mp/ 6. StoryKit is an app for creating a story with pictures! Students can draw their own pictures with the drawing program or import pictures. They can also record themselves telling the story, which would be easier than trying to type in the story. Students can also share their stories through email! The more I played with this app, the more impressed I became with its capabilities!

=Assignment 4 - Podcasts=

1. For instructional use - I did podcasts of poetry for the students to listen to. We used the podcasts each time we learned a new type of poetry. These two podcasts are from the book Hailstones and Halibut Bones by Mary O'Neill. I put these podcasts into a Smart Board lesson. media type="file" key="What is purple.mp3" width="240" height="20"

media type="file" key="What is Red.mp3" width="240" height="20"

2. By the students- Each student wrote a collection of poetry during the final few weeks of school. I had them each choose their favorite poem to record in a podcast. We used the Smartboard recorder to record each student reading their poem. The students practiced a little bit first. I created a stage for a background and imported each of the students' pictures to show while they read their poems.





=Assignment 5 - Reflection=

Personal Use - Not a day has gone by, since I received my iPod, that I haven't used it in some way! I love to play games to pass the time and there are so many available for the iPod. I love games that challenge me such as Minesweeper and Solitaire, but my favorite game is Fish Frenzy. I use my iPod to keep connected with friends and family through the Facebook app, through texting and TwitBird for Twitter. I keep up to date on news through Fox News, the Fond du Lac Reporter site, and The Weather Channel. Recently I have downloaded several apps that I use for my personal fun. One is called iScore. It is an app to keep stats for baseball games. It cost me $9.99, which was well worth the price. This app is amazing and I'll never keep baseball stats in a book again! I also found Grocery G which allows me to make a grocery list before I go shopping. No more forgetting something! I downloaded Flixster which shows the latest movies and the trailers that go with them. One app I love is called CountDown. I used it to count down to the end of the school year and I also put in the dates for my sons' birthdays. It's fun to see the days count down. There are a bunch more apps I love, but I don't want to get carried away. I love to listen to the music I have on my iPod (especially on a long bus ride on a field trip!) and I'm always sharing my photos with others. I'm sure there are a lot more apps and uses for me to discover with my iPod.

Educational Use - I have had the opportunity to use my iPod in our classroom for a few things. One of the ways is through the music. I have a stereo at school that allows me to play songs off of my iPod. It's amazing how motivated students are to work throughout the day in order to earn having me play my iPod for 5 minutes at the end of the day! I also used my iPod to show students a great app that is free and fun. It is called Human Facts. The students shake the iPod and an amazing fact about the human body is displayed. We have a doc camera in our room, so we put the iPod under the camera for the whole class to see! I also found an app that allows the user to to create a story on the iPod. It is called Story Kit. This is such a neat app and it's free! The timer is a great motivator also to get students to quickly clean up or line up. There are some applications that I would like to try in our classroom in the future. One is the app called Bump which allows iPods to share information. There is also a free spell checker that I just found which would be a fun way for students to look up the correct spelling of a word. Another fun app is called Doodle Buddy. Students can draw pictures and then share them with others. Last, but not least, I plan to use my iPod for podcasting. There are so many great podcasts for the classroom and the students loved the few that I used at the end of the school year. I look forward to finding even more ways to use this amazing technology in our classroom next year!

=Assignment 6 - You Tube Video=

media type="file" key="iPod Gaming in the Classroom- A Student's Perspective on Her SIM.MP4"

=Assignment 7 - Audio Books= Lit2Go
 * Lit2Go** is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. You can:
 * Download the files to your Mp3 player and listen on the go,
 * Listen to the Mp3 files on your computer,
 * View the text on a webpage and read along as you listen,
 * Print out the stories and poems to make your own book.

BooksShouldBeFree.com This site has a lot of audio books for download into iTunes for iPod. The books are in categories and easy to find.

Monarchlibrary This is a wiki with a large collection of sites to find audio books. It tells weather each:
 * //H= Has highlighted text for students to follow along.//
 * //R= Has a voice (or voice option) to read the text as the students follow along.//
 * //Q= Contains a quiz or reading comprehension questions.//

=Assignment 8 - Teacher.TV video=

ICT Teaching Resources This is a video that shows different technology resources that can be used in the classroom. This video discusses technology for young students.